The overall goal of the Program is to enhance the biomedical research and training capability of the institution. Three research subprojects provide support for five faculty and ten student participants. The first project examines the development of obesity in children of native Hawaiian ancestry by focusing on the relative importance of genetics, native Hawaiian cultural identity, physical fitness, nutrition, and stress. Next year's work will complete data collection on the children, and their families, in the rural schools as well as returning to the children already studied in the urban schools for the second measurement series. The second project investigates the presence of pathogenic leptospira in freshwater sources and cold-blooded vertebrates. Next year's work will continue the evaluation of methods of recovering, culturing, and identifying leptospires, including the use of fluorescent antibody techniques. The third project studies the role of cytoplasmic gradients of calcium in directing secretory vesicles to hyphal tips in Phytophthora Palmivora. Next year's work will center on the full employment of transmission electron microscopy and fluorescent microscopy in experimental studies.